MILWAUKEE — Whatever momentum the Cardinals carried with them on their happy flight from New York for an afternoon game in Milwaukee faded in a familiar way against the most familiar of foes.

It did not take long for the first-place Brewers to assert their hold on the division or this waning rivalry, whether that time is measured in innings or games. Milwaukee shortstop and birthday boy Willy Adames cracked a three-run homer in the first inning, and rookie Jackson Chourio followed with a grand slam five innings later. The Brewers hits three homers against the Cardinals to win, 9-3, on Monday at American Family Field and take any of the helium the Cardinals had remaining from a raucous weekend in the Bronx.

The Brewers opened up a 12-game lead on the Cardinals and remain the dominant force in the National League Central with a 30-17 record within the division and an 8-3 record against the Cardinals.

Milwaukee’s magic number shrinks.

The Cardinals’ need-magic number grows.

With the exception of Rhys Hoskins’ two-run homer in the fourth inning, the Cardinals invited the Brewers’ other displays of force with some gift-wrapped walks. Cardinals starter Andre Pallante dealt with a difficult strike zone and walked two batters in the first inning ahead of Adames’ 29th homer of the season. Chourio, the Brewers’ blossoming rookie, walked in each of his first three plate appearances. In the sixth, as an inning went sideways on Cardinals reliever Riley O’Brien, the 20-year-old Chourio added a trot to all those walks.

He drilled a 1-1 pitch from O’Brien for the grand slam that turned what had been a close, compelling game, into one more reflective of the standings.

The Cardinals gave chase for half the game, then tumbled well behind.

The Cardinals walked more Brewers (eight) than Milwaukee had hits (seven).

Inning erupts on O’Brien

It wasn’t too long ago that the Cardinals cleared a spot in their bullpen for one of their most intriguing acquisitions by dropping the reliever they got from Tampa Bay for former first-round pick Dylan Carlson. The interest in seeing O’Brien in the majors was so strong for the Cardinals that they were willing to risk losing Shawn Armstrong, the return on a former top prospect.

(Oh, and aside: Armstrong had retired 15 consecutive batters at the time he was removed from the Cardinals roster, and who picked him up off waivers? The Cubs.)

Without Armstrong in the bullpen, it was going to be tricky for the Cardinals to avoid using O’Brien in significant spots, and they were eager to see how he did because his pitches delight the metrics. His outings have been unsteady. On Monday came the collapse.

With a two-run deficit to freeze, O’Brien walked two of the first three batters he faced in the sixth inning and sandwiched a double in between. He got help from every inch of Paul Goldschmidt’s reach to snare a liner that could have cleared the bases. Instead, that came from the next batter. With the bases loaded thanks to the two walks and the double, Chourio drilled a pitch from O’Brien 420 feet and over the wall for a grand slam.

It was the rookie’s second grand slam of the season.

O’Brien recorded only two outs and allowed four runs on three walks and two hits. His ERA in the limited looks with the Cardinals bloated to 18.00. Since returning from an injury that cost him five months of the season and then rising to the majors, O’Brien has allowed seven hits and seven runs in three innings of work. He has four strikeouts. He had his first fits of walks Monday with three of them.

Adames seizes lead, ties MLB history

From the research files of niche Major League Baseball records and trivial pursuits comes the three-run homer that catapulted Milwaukee to a lead and its shortstop into a notable tie.

Pallante (6-7) worked the edges of the strike zone better than home-plate umpire Alfonso Marquez game him credit for doing. A couple of the pitches Pallante needed to control counts went instead to the hitter, and by the time Adames came up in the first inning, the Brewers had already collected two walks.

Twelve of Pallante’s first 23 pitches were balls.

The 24th pitch was Adames’ homer into history.

It gave the Brewers an instant 3-0 lead.

Adames became the third Brewer ever to homer in five consecutive games, joining Eric Thames and Jeromy Burnitz, both of whom had their five-game homer streaks since the Brewers were promoted to the National League. Adames’ shot tied a more specific MLB feat with his 13th three-run homer of the season. That matched Ken Griffey Jr.’s record for three-run homers in a single season, set back in 1996.

In his next at-bat, Adames had a chance to surpass Griffey and own the record on his own when he batted with two outs and two on in the third inning.

Pallante held him to a groundout.

Pages hoists Cardinals into game (twice)

Throughout the first half of the game, the Cardinals remained behind the Brewers but were able to give chase thanks to their catcher, Pedro Pages.

The rookie had his first multi-homer game of the season when he connected twice for solo homers against Brewers starter Freddy Peralta.

Pages greeted Peralta (10-7) with a leadoff homer in the third inning that came on an 0-2 pitch. In the fifth inning, Pages worked deeper into the count and pulled a homer down the left field line. Those were the Cardinals’ first two runs of the game, and each time, Pages’ long-distance hit inched the Cardinals closer to Milwaukee. Pages’ first homer tightened the score to 3-1, and his second homer cut the Brewers’ lead to 5-2.

The Cardinals got their runs in nibbles like that throughout the game against Peralta or the first look at the Brewers bullpen. They ran themselves out of the fourth inning by attempting to sneak a steal of second base. Instead of getting another runner into scoring position behind the plate, both Cardinals runners paused, and the defensively excellent Brewers had plenty of time catch the Cardinal caught between third and home. The flawed execution on the bait-and-switch double-steal attempt ended the inning with Jordan Walker at the plate.

In the top of the sixth inning, a single by Brendan Donovan and a double to right-center field by Goldschmidt put runners in scoring position for only the second time. Milwaukee turned to the bullpen for a lefty to face Lars Nootbaar, and the Cardinals turned to Luken Baker to face that lefty instead of Nootbaar.

Baker, who homered off a lefty Sunday, responded with a fly ball to center field that drove home a run with a sacrifice fly.

The Cardinals closed to within two runs.

Milwaukee pulled away from there.

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